Fading
by changed currents
Summary: [pre-invasion AU] Yuuto didn't know what grief felt like. Until now.


**Blame Shimmering-Sky for this one, and my angsty muse Kyoshi. Those two angsty people are ruining my parody mood. XD**

 **Also, another reason is because I was listening to the Vocaloid song "Feathers Across the Seasons" (** **四季折の羽 Shikiori no Hane), and that song has the most heartbreaking lyrics.**

 **GET YOUR TISSUES READY!**

 **Review, please!**

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At first, Yuuto doesn't know what grief is.

Of course, he's never had to feel it. The last time someone he had known had died, he'd been three years old, a tiny little toddler with no knowledge on the universe and all the miserable occasions that came with life.

Ten years later, coming home from school and finding a note on the kitchen table stating that his parents had gone out, to run some errands about the duel tournament scheduled for this weekend they were running, telling him that they would be back by dinner.

He goes and finishes his homework, because that was back when he'd actually had time for school. Then he spends the next hour organizing his deck and texting his friends on his computer, before going downstairs and setting the table for dinner.

Waiting, listening to the clock tick away time that would never come back. Watching as the food became cold, as the clock's hands ticked past nine in the evening, the sky erupting into flames of red and orange, darkening, as the sun disappeared. His parents never stayed out that late, even if they were held up. They'd all made a promise to each other years ago, that none of them would be out past nine for any reason.

Hearing the knocks, a wave of fear rising up in his chest, along with the instinctual feeling of something gone wrong. His parents had the keys, they wouldn't need to knock. His friends wouldn't come over at such a late hour, they had their own lives to live.

Opening the door to find two police officers, dressed in pressed uniforms with shiny gold badges gleaming on their lapels. Listening to them drone on about the horrible accident that had happened on the highway, a careless drunk slamming into his parents' car and killing them on impact, and accepting their pity with a facade of sadness before bidding them thanks and a good night.

Closing the door and falling to his knees, barely registering the pain as he slams his hands against the cold wood. Feeling the tears drip slowly down his face to fall on the hardwood floor, gritting his teeth and wondering why such a tragedy has to happen to him. He's done nothing, _nothing,_ to deserve this. Why?

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _...All the time we spent together..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

Waking up the next morning with the cold metal studs of his wristband pressing uncomfortably on his face, groggy and confused as to why he's sleeping on the floor in such an uncomfortable position. Then the full force of the news comes back and hits him in the face.

Spending the day sitting at his kitchen table, mug of hot chocolate in hand as he flips through photo album upon photo album of pictures, taking in his parents' happy faces and the baby versions of himself pictured at random intervals.

Listening to the monotonous buzz of his ringtone, frantic voicemails from his friends wondering where he is, and he figures that they haven't seen the news yet. So he sends back a simple message: r _ead the news._

In preparation, he turns off his phone, plugging it into the charger even though the battery is already full.

He's heard a thousand times about the numbness of grief, but he's never actually given it thought. He'd never lost someone before. Until his parents were killed last night.

He doesn't know this feeling, this _silence,_ this unbearable sadness overflowing his from his chest and controlling his emotions, this _desire_ to ignore everyone, shut out the world, and disappear.

The mug shatters into a thousand pieces on the floor, the now cold liquid seeping into the carpet his mother had just cleaned.

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _...the good or bad..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

Slowly walking to his parents' bedroom just down the hall from his, decorated with simple paintings of landscapes and a single scroll of Japanese kanji, and breathing in the scent that still lingers there. Picking up the picture framed so tenderly on the bedside table, a picture of the three of them together sharing bottles of ramune at the convenience store two blocks away.

He can still taste the fizzy grape soda, feel the cool marble slipping against the tip of his tongue, and his mother's warm hand on his shoulder as she shakes with barely contained laughter. His father's eyes twinkling as he takes his wife away from his son, setting down his ramune bottle before pressing his lips to hers.

They were alive just _yesterday._

Sinking to the floor for the second time in fourteen hours, gripping the picture frame in his hands. A single tear splashes over both his parents' smiling faces as he finally allows himself to cry once more.

The house phone rings hundreds of times, voicemails from neighbors, his friends, his parents' friends, teachers, all sorts of people he'd usually never get calls from. He can literally see the pity in their eyes as the endless barrage of recorded voices fills up the empty hallways, as if it were the placeholder for his parents' voices.

The next day, a city official shows up at his doorstep. He's told they've captured the drunk driver that killed his parents, and the city requests his presence at the court the next day for the sentencing. The man is accused on two counts of murder.

After the official leaves, he closes the door to the silence that's become omnipresent since that day, filled up with the same numbness. Two counts of murder. _Murder._ The word is the final nail hammered in place on top of his parents' coffins.

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _...a bittersweet mix..._

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 _..._

 _..._

He has no other relatives- his parents were only children, and his grandparents had died when he was young. So he singlehandedly plans their funerals, picking the simplest tombstones but the most scenic gravesites, since he knows that's what his parents would've wanted.

Pouring himself another cup of hot water, he continues flipping through the photo albums and even finds his mother's old scrapbooks tucked away in the drawers next to the television. As he progresses through each album, he can find the lines slowly making their way onto his parents' youthful faces, lines he's never noticed in his life until now.

All the while, his own face sheds the fat of a toddler, his cheekbones slowly coming into the picture, his eyes becoming more pronounced as he grows.

Sitting on the hard wooden bench in the courtroom, he leans back, staring at the ceiling and ignoring the glances from everybody nearby. He wears a practiced mask on his face, while his real emotions are in turmoil underneath.

When the judge asks him if he wants to talk to the murderer, he just looks the man over. Spiked yellow hair in an unorganized fashion plastered all over his head, with bright green eyes that seem to hold not a single ounce of remorse. Hands clenched into angry fists at his sides, wrinkling the bright orange fabric of his prison garb.

"Nothing you say will bring my parents back, but a simple _I'm sorry_ will do."

Spending the rest of the day organizing the photo albums and scrapbooks by year, shedding a fair amount of tears as he does. Sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, with a roll of masking tape and a black permanent marker, mug of tea placed carefully in between his legs, back pressed against hand-sewn pillows in a rainbow of colors. Writing in his comfortable, almost cursive script, his delicate fingers pasting the slips of tape onto the bindings of the albums.

He goes to bed that night with the picture of their ramune trip slipped under his pillow.

...

...

...

 _...I'm going to treasure..._

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 _..._

 _..._

As a thirteen-year old, he's not allowed to own property. But at the reading of his parents' will, it's decreed he lives by himself in the house until he's old enough to make his own decisions. All taxes should be taken from his parents' bank account, and he's not to be bothered with official matters.

He hopes his parents can hear him as he thanks them over and over again in his head.

 _"I'm worried about you...please, just tell me you're okay...words can't express how much I miss your parents...I'll be at the funeral for them and you..."_

He slams his hand down on the pause button, stopping the recorded voicemails, and sinks down, back sliding against the cabinets of the kitchen drawers. His spine hits a knob and explodes with pain, but he ignores the feeling. His friends had been calling him for days now, getting concerned with his lack of response. One had even come over and knocked on the door for an hour straight, begging him to let her in.

"No...just please go away..."

"But, Yuuto-"

"Please..."

Two days later, he finally leaves the house. He has to, anyways.

It's his parents' funeral.

Dressed in a black button-up shirt, tie, vest, dark black jeans, and black boots, he makes his way to the gravesite as a sprinkle of rain starts to fall. He waves off his friends' concerned looks, and shuts out any pity-filled statements from the nearby audience, instead choosing to kneel in the dirt in front of the graves, hands pressed deep into the freshly turned earth.

The coffins are placed slowly in the earth, the lids already shut as he requested. He doesn't want to see his parents' faces in death, or the shabby attempts at covering up the marks the accident left on their bodies. He treasures the mental image of last time he saw their faces, healthy and alive, and doesn't want it spoiled.

When a bouquet of flowers is pressed into his hands, concerned pink eyes meeting his own, a tear finally breaks free as he stands, joints cracking as he does. He lowers his head, letting the droplet splatter on the soil, before untying the bouquet of purple dwarf irises. Carefully, he pinches the first flower that comes away from the bunch between his fingers, rolling it around, before dropping it on his mother's coffin.

He does the same with his father's, taking the next that falls away into his hands before letting it drift to rest on the shiny black lid, stepping back as he does.

The pink-eyed girl takes the bouquet from him again, solemnly plucking two flowers and dropping them onto the graves, copying his actions as tears drop down her own face. Then she passes it on to the gold-eyed boy next to her, who is as stoic and still as a rock, but the grief is blatant in his expression.

Slowly, one by one, the entire bouquet dissolves into loose flowers scattered all over the lids of the coffins, the rain now pattering down in a steady fall. Black umbrellas explode into view as people shield themselves from the rain. But he denies the shelter of an umbrella offered to him, and only watches as the dirt is slowly tipped back on top of the black lids, the faint, polished gleam disappearing under loads of dark wet dirt.

Just before the dirt covers the graves completely, a flash of purple catches his eye. One of the dwarf irises, soaked with rain and limp, still showing its purple radiance to the world.

Then the earth collapses into place, and the final iris flower disappears under the brown mass.

Kurosaki Ruri turns to him again, her tears returning tenfold, and now Yuuto understands, standing under the grey sky, the rain washing away the salty droplets that leak from his eyes.

This is what grief feels like.

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _...every second of it..._

 _..._

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* * *

 **Well, that's done. Kyoshi, this is your fault.**

 **Listen to "Feathers Across the Seasons" (it's in Japanese):** **watch?v=R_4Ut1DI4wA &list=PLyWnSlgqWeQMRQK-NY8-MwnjKLzbVyqjK&index=11. Enter this in, and then put www. youtube . com (without spaces.)**

 **Review, please!**


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